China is going to construct the world’s first fusion-fission hybrid power plant, a revolutionary step in nuclear energy. The facility, known as the Xinghuo high-temperature superconducting reactor, is designed to generate one hundred megawatts of continuous electricity and connect to the grid by the end of the decade. The plant will be constructed on Yaohu Science Island, which is located in the hi-tech zone of Nanchang, Jiangxi province.

The two billion seven hundred- and six million-dollar project has officially entered its first phase. A public tender has been issued for an environmental impact statement, according to zbytb.com, a Chinese procurement and bidding platform. The environmental impact report will consider factors such as air, water, noise, and ecology. It will also contain risk assessments, pollution control strategies, and long-term monitoring plans. The project’s name is Xinghuo which means “spark”. It is inspired by a quote from Mao Zedong: “A single spark can start a prairie fire.”

The Xinghuo reactor is a joint venture between the state-owned China Nuclear Industry 23 Construction Corporation and Lianovation Superconductor. This was reported by the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

Lianovation is a spin-off of Lianovation Optoelectronics which is a company based in Jiangxi province. Jiangxi is famous for its abundant copper resources, a crucial material in superconducting technology.

According to a 2023 collaboration agreement, the Xinghuo reactor is designed for an energy gain factor (Q value) of more than thirty. This Q value measures the ratio of thermal power output to the energy input required to heat the plasma in a fusion reaction.

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in France aims for a Q value above ten. The US National Ignition Facility achieved a Q value of one and a half in 2022, meaning the energy output was one and a half times greater than the input.

Fusion is the same process that powers our Sun, where light atomic nuclei, such as hydrogen, fuse to release energy. Fission splits heavy atomic nuclei like uranium to generate power which is an approach currently used in commercial nuclear power plants.

Unlike pure fusion projects such as ITER, Xinghuo will combine fusion and fission processes. The high-energy neutrons generated by fusion reactions will trigger fission in surrounding materials which increases the energy output while potentially reducing nuclear waste.

The timeline for Xinghuo’s construction has not been disclosed. However, its environmental impact statement is expected to be completed by the end of this year.

A 2021 development plan from Jiangxi province established a goal for the demonstration and application of the hybrid project by 2030. Lianovation Superconductor stated in 2023 that the one hundred-megawatt hybrid facility could be completed within six years.

If China is able to complete the hybrid plant on schedule, it will be a major breakthrough. The country would be years ahead of other fusion-fission and pure fusion projects worldwide, SCMP reported.

This development could also accelerate progress on the China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor which is a large-scale fusion-only initiative planned for Hefei, Anhui province, in the mid-2030s. The Hefei project is considered to be China’s answer to ITER.

China Nuclear Industry 23 Construction Corporation

Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)

Developing a plan and a regulatory system for nuclear power will allow Australia to be ready to adopt the nuclear option immediately if it makes sense in the future.

Given five years to plan and create a regulatory framework, an optimistic construction time of ten years would mean that nuclear power would not be expected to start generating electricity in Australia for at least fifteen years.

If the Coalition started a nuclear energy program after the 2025 election, nuclear power stations could not be expected to start generating electricity in Australia until the 2040s. This would be a serious problem for a Coalition government wanting to build nuclear plants to replace ageing coal-fired power stations on the same site.

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) projects all coal-fired power stations will have retired by 2037 and ninety percent of them within a decade. Under this scenario, solar and wind power will have replaced all coal-fired power stations well before 2040. If the Coalition plans to subsidize coal plants to extend their life, then reaching the 2050 net-zero emissions target will become much more difficult.

AEMO developed three scenarios for Australia’s energy transition. Modelling by Frontier Economics for the Coalition uses the ‘Progressive Change’ scenario which will take longer to decarbonize the energy sector than the ‘Step Change’ scenario favored by Labor.

The result of selecting this scenario will be greater emissions for the whole planet. Recent modelling by the Climate Change Authority calculated that the Coalition nuclear plan would yield at least an additional two billion tons of carbon emissions, consistent with a global pathway to two and sixth tenths degrees warming and missing Australia’s 2030 Paris emissions reduction commitment (forty three percent) by more than five percent.

There are also serious doubts about the Coalition’s claims that its plans are cheaper.

The Frontier Economics modelling says yes, mostly because of savings from delaying coal plant closures, the additional systems costs for renewables and the shorter lifetimes of wind and solar plants.

The most recent CSIRO-AEMO GenCost annual report strongly disagrees. It considers all of the factors that Frontier Economics says makes nuclear cheaper and still finds that nuclear power is twice as expensive as renewables, consistent with similar studies overseas. It also doesn’t include the government subsidies required to encourage Australia’s ageing coal-fired power stations to continue generating electricity until the 2040s.

Those coal-fired power stations will force owners to compete head-to-head with much cheaper renewables, particularly during the middle of the day when solar power could provide cheaper power than coal and nuclear.

Voters will have two choices. One choice is a continuation of our energy transition to cheaper renewables already underway to stay below two degrees. The other choice is an uncertain nuclear future from 2040 resulting in more emissions and default on our Paris targets.

There is a possible way that nuclear energy might be part of a future energy mix. Regardless of how the last few percent of the electricity system is decarbonized close to 2050, it will be very expensive. Nuclear, possibly SMRs, might become cost-competitive at that late stage in the transition to net-zero but only time will tell.

Climate Change Authority

Part 1 of 2 Parts

Australia’s taxpayers have already paid a price for the political division over the country’s energy future. Now the Coalition party’s nuclear policy is effectively hitting their wallet even before voters get their say on whether it’s part of the nation’s energy transition.

All Australians pay for the lack of a bipartisan approach to meeting national and global carbon emissions targets. This is because uncertainty creates risk for investors and this risk adds a premium to the financing costs of energy megaprojects which is a cost that has to be recouped.

Throwing the Coalition’s nuclear plans into that discussion just fuels the uncertainty even before analysis of which path is the cheaper, more appropriate or most timely for our energy transition.

Nuclear energy shouldn’t be prohibited by law as a potential part of Australia’s future energy mix. There are solid no-regrets arguments for lifting legislative bans on it to expand flexibility, especially as the final few percent of achieving a carbon-free energy system later in the 2040s will be expensive no matter which option is chosen.

In the run-up to the Australia federal election, the country again finds itself at a party-political crossroads in its response to climate change. Despite more than a decade of debate driven by political parties, Australians still have no unified approach on energy options or reaching emissions targets. This election they still have to choose between two pathways to decarbonize Australia’s electricity sector.

The Labor party government is maintaining its target of eighty-two percent renewable electricity by 2030, even though that trajectory is under some strain. Renewable installations have plateaued, even though 2024 is expected to show a record four and three tenths’ gigawatts of approved large-scale solar and wind projects and three and two tenths’ gigawatts of small-scale rooftop solar installed.

The reason for the slowdown in renewable energy implementation is complex but is partly caused by connection difficulties for large-scale renewables and community pushback on transmission lines and wind and solar farms.

The Coalition has the same 2050 net-zero goal as the Labor party but has yet to provide interim targets. It has instead promised to include nuclear power as part of the energy mix. This will begin with two small modular reactors (SMRs), which are under three hundred megawatts capacity, to come online in 2035 in South Australia and Western Australia. No commercial SMRs have been built in the Western world and the only examples are in China and Russia.

If conventional large-scale reactors are shown to be a better option, the Coalition plans for these to start producing electricity in 2037 in two locations in each of Queensland and New South Wales and one in Victoria.

There are also serious doubts that the Coalition’s nuclear timetable is achievable. International experience shows that recent construction times in the Western world far exceed a decade. However, in countries like the United Arab Emirates with different regulatory and governance systems it’s under nine years.

However, before any nuclear power plant can be built, Australia first needs to create a plan and a regulatory system. That could take up to five years, including the time needed to develop and implement the social license. There is an argument that Australia should do this anyway and remove the current legislated prohibition on nuclear energy, as favored by opinion polls.

Australian Energy Market Operator

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